


The Feeling Inside Keeps Building

by deandratb



Category: One Day at a Time (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-18
Updated: 2018-02-18
Packaged: 2019-03-20 16:51:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13721952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deandratb/pseuds/deandratb
Summary: After thequinces,Schneider keeps getting weirdly sexy again. Penelope has trouble dealing with it.“Come on. The look is different, it’s totally different. You’re too pretty now, Schneider. It’s bizarre.”





	The Feeling Inside Keeps Building

**Author's Note:**

> Loosely inspired by [this thing over here.](http://actuallylorelaigilmore.tumblr.com/post/170554552200/moepoke-this-is-some-college-au-gold)

Schneider went through a lot of questionable style phases in the years after Penelope met him. His metrosexual, hipster, “brainy logger” aesthetic had actually only been going on for a couple of years now.

So it shouldn’t have been surprising to see him clean shaven and without his glasses. Nothing could be half as shocking, after all, as when they first met and he looked like the love child of Guy Fieri and that guy from Sugar Ray.

Honestly, though, most of his fashion choices were the exact opposite of what Penelope could call appealing, or attractive, or even sane. The disco sideburns, the henna phase, the brief but intense love for patterned capri pants.

In a way, she had known Schneider longer than Alex had even been alive, but until the _quinces,_ she hadn’t realized he could be...pretty.

And while she usually went for tough guys, guys who knew how to handle a weapon and save the lives of strangers--well, damn if she didn’t also have a weakness for a pretty man. Which turned out to include Schneider, with a smile that could light up her whole living room and those bright blue eyes.

But that should have been the end of it, a confusing few minutes during an emotional day, something to tuck away and forget as though it never happened.

Unfortunately, it happened again.

****

“You know,” Penelope told him while they waited for the kids to finish getting ready, “you don’t have to get all dressed up for stuff like this. It’s just a concert. It’s not a wedding.”

“I know. I wanted to. Don’t you like it?”

She scoffed, hoping she sounded more casual than she felt. “It doesn’t matter if I like it--I thought **you** liked your whole scruffy nerd thing.”

“I do.” Schneider shrugged. “But it’s fun to dress up, too. People look at you differently. Well, you know.”

“What do you mean? I spend most of my life in scrubs.”

“Yeah, but you saw me the day of Elena’s _quinces_ and nearly fainted in shock.”

“I did not.”

Schneider grinned. “You called me ‘weirdly sexy Schneider.’ Still one of my favorite nicknames, by the way.”

“I hadn’t slept in days. I was delirious. Didn’t have a clue what I was saying. I can’t believe you thought I meant that.”

He blinded her again with that smile and patted her on the shoulder. “Oh, come on, Pen. We both know you meant exactly what you said. It’s no big--you think I’m slammin.’”

“Don’t say slammin,’” Penelope replied automatically. She didn’t bother arguing with him about the rest of it; that would mean more discussion of her attraction to Schneider, which didn’t even exist.

She wasn’t attracted to him. She’d never really been attracted to him. It just got under her skin when he looked...well, like that.

He spent the evening with her family focused on Alex’s performance, oblivious to Penelope’s simmering annoyance. She spent the night banishing distracting thoughts whenever his scent drifted her way from two seats down.

****

He volunteered to chaperone the junior prom, joining Penelope and Lydia against Elena’s insistence that none of them needed to come. _“Couldn’t you pick some other dance? Any other dance, that I won’t be attending?”_

Penelope had a job, and a life, so of course she kept leaving her volunteer hours to the last minute...and of course it was a little depressing that this time she didn’t have a tall and handsome boyfriend to bring along.

But Schneider was there, with sleek hair and that freakin’ sexy cologne, dancing with Lydia and teasing Elena and Syd and getting Penelope’s attention more than she would have liked.

She was standing near the refreshments table, watching her daughter slow dance, and wondering where the years had gone.

“May I have this dance?” 

She didn’t realize she had been swaying along to the music until Schneider was there, holding out his hand.

It would be conspicuous if she argued; there was no good reason for her to turn him down.

Instead, Penelope took his hand and followed him to a spot on the edge of the dance floor.

The song that was playing was from the ‘90s. She wasn’t even sure how it had made it into the rotation--surely the ‘90s weren’t making a comeback already. But she remembered the lyrics from college road trips, belting along like she was the next Mariah Carey in-between stops.

The memory made her smile. Looking down at her, Schneider smiled back curiously. “When was the last time you slow danced?”

“Oh, god. A really long time ago.” With Max, at Elena’s first school dance, she realized, the two of them pressed dangerously close in the gym while they moved in lazy circles. 

Schneider was more careful, keeping his hands at the small of her back and a few inches of space between them.

“What about you?”

“A couple of weeks ago.”

Penelope blinked at that, thinking it over. “Did you crash another prom?”

Schneider ducked his head, but she caught his grin before he hid it. “No, nothing like that. You didn’t ask the last event I went to--we were talking slow dancing.”

“So you were just dancing randomly?”

“Yeah. Haven’t you ever?” He ran his fingertips up her back as they continued to sway, and Penelope had to resist the urge to arch into them. 

“You know, putting on music late at night...a little romance?”

“In case you hadn’t noticed,” she pointed out quietly, “I’m not exactly living with a lot of romance lately.”

Schneider frowned and tugged her closer, resting his cheek against her hair. “Well, you’re dancing now.”

Lydia tangoed by with one of the other chaperones.

“And you’re not the only one having a good time,” Schneider cracked as they watched her.

“Isn’t that man married?”

“i think so. But your mom’s pretty hard to resist. And besides, it’s just a dance.”

“Right.” Penelope could hear his heartbeat, her face pressed lightly against his chest.

Just a friendly dance, she reminded herself. Not a problem. 

Tomorrow Schneider would start letting his beard grow out again, and things would go back to normal. 

****

After the prom, he started wearing his contacts more. Then he decided to ditch the beard full-time. 

It became a problem. 

By the night of Alex’s senior formal, just being around Schneider was starting to make Penelope twitchy.

He circled Alex with his iPhone, posting photos and video clips for a full hour while he got ready. Even her son, with his love of the spotlight, seemed relieved to escape when it was time.

“So, is it weird, not getting to be there?” Schneider shut her door with himself on the wrong side of it, after Alex left. “You went to so many with Elena.”

Penelope smiled. “It’s a little sad. But he insisted. And I get it, he’s not a kid anymore...why would he want his mom around?” 

He nodded, following that with a slight shake of his head like he wanted to say more but chose not to. “Big plans tonight?”

“Oh, yeah, super big. I’m gonna eat cake and watch the clock until Alex gets home.”

Schneider draped an arm over her shoulders. “Come on, Penelope, you can’t spend the whole night torturing yourself. You don’t see Lydia waiting around, do you?”

“ _Mami’s_ at the opera with Dr. Berkowitz.”

“That’s because your mom knows how to have a good time.” He turned her away from the front door and steered her back toward the couch. “It just so happens that I cleared my schedule--I didn’t want to miss Alex’s big night. Now I’m all yours. We should watch a movie or something.”

“Wouldn’t you rather go out?”

“Nah. I don’t like the idea of you all alone up here...sitting in the dark for hours, crying, eating cake out of the pan.”

She shot him a glare as he sat next to her on the couch. “I don’t do that.” _How did he know she did that?_

“Come on, Pen, it’ll be fun. What about West Side Story? That’s a good one.”

She grabbed the remote before he could. “Too weird. One of the characters reminds me of my mom.”

“Then you pick.”

“You really want to do this.”

“Why not?” Schneider raised his eyebrows. “You’re here, I’m here. I want all the deets about Alex’s dance when he gets home too, y’know. That’ll be easier if I stick around.”

“And if I pick a sappy romantic movie?”

“I’ll get the tissues ready.”

Penelope frowned, tapping the remote against her thigh. _It was just...weird. Wasn’t it?_

Schneider flashed her that impossibly bright grin, and she sighed inwardly. He was being a friend, it wasn’t his fault she was having trouble with him sitting so close. 

It was entirely his fault that he smelled so damn good. But she was the one being creepy.

“Alright, fine. You can choose the one we start with.”

“Very generous of you.”

****

She made it thirty minutes into the first movie before she broke the easy silence between them. 

In hindsight, it was not Penelope’s proudest moment, giving in to impulse when she knew better...but Schneider’s pick had subtitles and was kind of confusing. That made it harder to ignore the way her stomach flipped whenever he smiled over at her after every joke. 

“So. How long is this going to last?”

“What?”

Penelope gestured toward his face--which, even with the tan, looked impossibly soft. Her fingertips itched to test that, especially since she had been subjected to detailed explanations of his skin care routine more than once.

“This. The new Schneider.”

“I’m just me.”

“Come on. The look is different, it’s totally different. You’re too pretty now, Schneider. It’s bizarre.”

He frowned, turning back to the movie. “Okay. I’m really not sure what to say to that. You know you sound insane, right?”

“I was just asking.”

“About my shaving plans.”

“...Yeah.”

“Because you don’t like the way I look.” Schneider crossed his arms.

Neither of them thought to pause the movie; the French dialogue kept playing in the background while Penelope huffed out an irritated breath.

“That’s not what I said!”

“Okay, fine. You liked the way I looked before, better.”

“You have to stop putting words in my mouth.” She glared at him. “I don’t even understand why we’re fighting right now. Let’s just watch the movie.”

“Or maybe I should go.” He started to stand and she tugged him back down. 

“No, Schneider, come on. I’m sorry. Okay? You don’t have to leave. I wasn’t trying to insult you. I was just trying to understand.”

“Understand what, Penelope?”

“Why you decided to change things up. You know, you had the glasses and everything for years. Now, you just look so...different.”

He shrugged. “I thought it was a good different.”

She swallowed hard, but figured she owed him that much, now that he seemed perplexed and a little hurt. “It--it is.”

“Yeah?”

Schneider was watching her. It was like being under an especially bright microscope, his eyes pinning her to the spot. _Fuck, they were blue,_ she thought inanely, while he waited for her to respond.

“Yeah. I like it. I swear. It’s just weird.”

“Why?”

Penelope bit her bottom lip, trying to figure out how to escape this line of conversation. _If she dropped and rolled off the couch, then took her dislocated shoulder to the ER, would that be conspicuous?_

“You know what,” Schneider said with a sigh, “you’re right, we should probably just watch the movie.”

When he shifted away from her, it should’ve been a relief. He turned his narrowed gaze back to the TV, and she could breathe again. 

But Schneider was so quiet for the rest of the movie. He stopped shooting her that easy grin and he kept tapping his hands on his knees, and instead of watching the weird French people fall in love Penelope was watching his long fingers move against the distressed fabric of his designer jeans.

He was still her crazy friend, the landlord who brought his loneliness to her door on the daily. 

A shave and some contacts really shouldn’t have changed anything.

When the credits rolled and Penelope was thinking too hard to notice it was time to switch movies, Schneider reached over her to grab the remote.

That was the final straw for her self-control and the rational side of her brain--because around the time that she wasn’t witnessing the climactic kiss that followed swelling violin music, Penelope realized that she was right.

It hadn’t changed anything. 

She was attracted to Schneider, and it had more to do with his dumb sense of humor and endless sweetness than this new look of his. That had just focused her attention.

So with his back half-turned to her and the nape of his neck right under her nose, Penelope grabbed his wrist with her fingertips and smiled when he froze in place. 

“Schneider.”

“Pen?”

He was incapable of holding a grudge; that was one of her favorite things about him. Even before he replied she could tell he was thawing out of his annoyance at her.

That was helpful. it made it easier to look him in the eye when he pulled back, her hand still holding on to him.

“I like it. The look.”

She tried to say the rest with her eyes, and the slight dilation of his pupils told Penelope that he got the message, but Schneider had a good poker face sometimes--he didn’t react in any other way.

“I **really** like it.”

He slid his arm out of her grasp and Penelope’s mind started to race. Sure, honesty seemed like the best policy when she was itchy and stupid, but now she had set herself up for rejection from Schneider, of all people. 

Or even worse than his dismissal...his pity. If he gave her that ‘I’m really sorry you got the wrong idea’ face, she might die on the spot. _What had she been thinking, saying anything at all?_

“Well, thank God,” Schneider said, interrupting her inner monologue.

“Huh?”

“Penelope Alvarez, you are a fascinating yet complicated woman.”

“I know.” She blinked. “In what way, exactly, in this particular moment?”

“Ever since I changed things up, you’ve acted like...well, like you hate it. Which didn’t make any sense to me, because you **seemed** like you liked it before. I mean, it confused you, but you didn’t hate it.”

She nodded. “I didn’t hate it.”

“Well, good. Because it would be kind of ridiculous if I put in this much work to highlight my slammin’ self-”

“Don’t say slammin.”

“It would be ridiculous if I spent all this time trying to look good, and you actually hated it.”

“Why would that matter, Schneider? Why do you care what I think?” 

She didn’t really expect an answer, not when she had dodged the same question. Schneider kept surprising her.

“In addition to being fascinating and complicated, you’re pretty smart,” he replied. “Why do you think?”

Okay, so maybe it hadn’t **entirely** escaped her attention that Schneider’s transformation happened after he left her speechless. After they slow danced at Elena’s _quinces,_ then she stuttered her way through ‘good night’ because he hugged her and Penelope noticed-- _like, really noticed, for the first time_ \--that he was lean and firm and male. After she saw him as more than just the Canadian goofball who haunted her household.

Maybe she felt every silence that followed, when he used to toss compliments at her easily but now he held back. 

Maybe she worried a little bit that something had changed, when she didn’t want any more changes, and so she held back too, and refused to admit that she cared.

Now here they were alone in her apartment, Schneider waiting patiently on her couch, his expressive face so open and gentle and kind. 

He deserved to know all of that, everything she had been keeping from him for months, but Penelope didn’t know how to say any of it out loud.

Instead, before she could regret it, she leaned in and kissed him. She kept her eyes open as his shut involuntarily, she watched as he sunk into the kiss, and she didn’t blink until he reached out to pull her closer.

She kept waiting for it to get weird. She was kissing Schneider. They were making out on her couch, where her family watched TV--it should've been hilarious. 

It wasn’t funny at all. 

Especially not when he moved a hand up to tangle his fingers in her hair as his thumb drew light circles against the nape of her neck. She actually shivered, while his other hand founds hers and he grazed her bottom lip with his teeth.

“It’s not really about the contacts,” she confessed in a rush when they broke apart for air. “Or the beard, or the cologne. Though, damn Schneider, I really like your new cologne. What is that?”

He shook his head. “But all that helped, didn’t it? ‘Cause I can’t imagine us here, like this, a year ago.”

Penelope thought about it while he toyed with the ends of her curls, his warm eyes on hers. “Yeah, me neither. But it’s not about the look.”

“It’s fine, you know. You can be shallow, Pen. Everybody is a little.”

She grabbed his collar with both hands and tugged for emphasis, harder than she meant to. “That’s not it. It’s you. Okay? It’s you.”

“I’m...me. Got it.”

Underneath her frustration Penelope acknowledged, then dismissed, the impulse to kiss the furrow in his forehead that she had put there.

“ _Ay Dios,_ how did this get so complicated?” She let go of his shirt. “What I am **trying** to say is, I like you. I like the way you direct your addictive personality toward exercise and snow globes and how much you care about my kids. It’s not about your look.”

Penelope tapped a finger against his chest. “It’s about what’s in here. I’m attracted to that. To you.”

“Well, that’s good,” he replied. “Otherwise I would be pretty confused about why your tongue was in my mouth a minute ago.”

“I just mean, yeah, I appreciate...all this.” She pressed her palm to his cheek and left it there. “But that’s not why--”

“You’re starting to babble,” Schneider said, grinning. “That’s a new one. You must really like me.”

“I...” Penelope cut herself off when he trailed his fingertips down the back of the hand she was still holding up. He curved them along the inside of her wrist, over the spot where her heart was beating so fast she was sure he must be able to feel it thrum. 

Schneider slid his palm under hers, lifting her hand away and kissing the back of it.

“I get it. You can stop. I like you too.” He pressed his lips to her forehead and smiled. “You have to know that part already.”

“You pretty much live here,” she agreed faintly, still focused on the feel of his fingers tracing along her skin.

“Nah, I live upstairs.” Schneider grinned into their kiss when he saw her eyeroll. 

He brushed his hand over her ribcage, letting his fingers settle against her hip. 

“Pen?”

“Yes?”

“Want to go upstairs?”

She glanced to her right, where the DVD player was still waiting for the next movie, then over her left shoulder at the unlocked front door, which her mom could reasonably come dancing through at any moment. 

Penelope faced forward again and looked at Schneider--no-longer-so-weirdly sexy Schneider--as his hand flexed against her hip and she felt heat spread through her in response.

He had great hands, she decided. She wanted them everywhere.

“Let’s go.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title borrowed from "If It Kills Me" by Jason Mraz.


End file.
